Free Republic

For almost 400 years America has seen its citizens educating their children and themselves, though both the scope, structure and quality of education has changed somewhat during that time. For much of the history of the United States, education of children took place primarily at home, often along with private schools for some, and locally managed and supported schools for others. Education included the general ethos of Christianity and Biblical morality as well as academic subjects. The New England Primer and later, the nation-wide McGuffey's Readers (120+ million copies) were the primary instruments of education, and in helping to form...

There is this notion, one we hear more and more, that the Republican Party has to shed the social issues to seize the future. "Social issues are not the business of government!" says thoroughly modern millennial. It's a seductive cry, one repeated this past Tuesday in an article about how some young libertarians dubbed the "Liberty Kids" are taking over the moribund Los Angeles GOP. Oh, wouldn't the political landscape be simple if we could just boil things down to fiscal responsibility? But life is seldom simple. If you would claim to be purely fiscal, or assert that "social issues"...

This weekend, I will be attending the high school graduation of a young relative, as tens of thousands of others likely will as well. Though these events are a dime a dozen, and a high school graduation doesn't seem to carry the weight of importance that it once did, it seems appropriate to regard the attendance of such an event as a special occasion, special enough to don at least a clean shirt and pants without holes. But what I expect to see will probably be trumped by even what I've witnessed in past years - people wearing shorts, theme...

A Prophecy Fulfilled Fr. Stanislas de Lestapis, a French Jesuit, died in 1999 at the age of 94. He had been a member of the Papal Commission on Birth Control and was one of the signatories of its so-called Minority Report. He had published a book on Birth Control, of which the third edition appeared in 1962, long before Humanae Vitae (1968). In Chapter 7, on The Contraceptive Civilization, he made the following bold prophecies: 'We do not hesitate to say that the acceptance of contraception will produce profound changes in our civilization. These changes are already taking place in...

Folks, a pretty busy weekend for “gay rights” activists. Currently, the so-called “National Equality Rally” is under way in Washington, D.C.; yesterday, President Obama, fresh from his Nobel Peace Prize win, addressed a meeting of the Human Rights Campaign, promising, among other things, the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that forces active homosexual persons to keep their sexual preference a private matter while serving in the military. The ban has been a favorite of presidents and politicians who have never served in the military and are clueless as to its inner social workings, yet are bent to...

By the time police stopped him, the driver of the Ford Escort had sped out of an East Austin alley and slammed into a curb. Oscar Medina, 25, could barely walk a straight line or count to 10 when he got out of the car. Reeking of alcohol, Medina told an officer he had drunk seven beers that night and had had nothing to eat since breakfast. A breath test indicated his blood alcohol level was .163 percent, twice the legal limit. Medina, who was arrested June 7 and jailed on a charge of drunken driving, contributes to an unfortunate...

Culture vultures prey on the cretins of cool Gerald Warner COOL is the cult of cretinism; so it is unsurprising that it is also auto-destructive. This became evident last week, when it was revealed that schoolchildren in Scotland are refusing to wear reflective clothing, as a road safety measure, because 88% of them think that high-visibility clothing "does not look cool in front of friends". This is the Darwinian theory of natural selection operating at first hand. Until very recently, hedgehogs thought it uncool to scurry across motorways. Now, according to zoologists, their sense of self-preservation has reprogrammed them either...